In case you didn't remember what that whole American Revolution was about, the US was supposed to be better. It was supposed to be about not having a bunch of unaccountable rulers and their lackeys monitoring and controlling society.

Snowden's revelations confirm that the Old World is as bad as expected, and that the New World is just as bad as the Old.

I remember the outrage in 1987 when Jonathon Pollard was caught spying on the US for Israel. A simpler, more naive time perhaps, but the harsh reality of the World is that information is power. Nations are willing to forego an occasional bit of moral outrage in their Machiavellian quest to retain and grow their influence.

In case you didn't remember what that whole American Revolution was about, the US was supposed to be better.

It was about a lack of representation in parliament, and onerous taxation, not about spying.

Everyone spies, get over it. You and I dont have to like it, but its absurd to single the US out over this. If you want something to be outraged about, be outraged over domestic (not international) spying.

1) How non-interventionalistic do you think I think you were? Don't strawman me, bro - I come from England, which has invaded pretty much every country. Before the US became the world's horny young man, sticking its dick in everything, it was us.

2) Let's be 100% clear: the US spying regime is on Americans. It's just done via foreign spying agencies, while the foreign agencies use the NSA to spy on foreign citizens. To pretend otherwise is intellectual dishonesty.

You're the one who came up with this non-interventionalism crap -- not me. So you're straw manning yourself. I've actually read a history book or two so I'm pretty clued in on European imperialism. Don't be a condescending ass like a typical Brit, please.

lol...I'm more aware of the Five Eyes program than you are. And your government does the same fucking thing.

Spying isn't intervention. It's intelligence gathering. It's what you do with that intelligence that determines whether there's any "interventi

And the accusations coming from the rest of the world, as if their hands are clean?!?

I wouldn't expect anything less. These countries have domestic politics to contend with, so they have to act indignant.

I can't really get upset at governments spying on other governments, even though tracking SBY's wife seems like it's going a little bit far. That's all part of the game. It's small fry compared to wholesale spying on all of your own citizens.

Snowden is brave, and a hero. And I don't think, given his job, that he thought the US was the only one doing it. He probably would have leaked the shitty details on any other country too, if they'd have given them to a contractor working for the defense department.:D

The delay in publishing this story is excessive, even by slashdot standards. Was GCHQ reluctant to release it on their tech news site while the Democracy Forum conference in Bali and CHOGM in Sri Lanka were still ongoing?

While there were hints of news around this topic previously, the details that came to light are new (if unsurprising), and the story is front page news in Australia today - see for example ABC News [abc.net.au].

I would be far more surprised if Australia wasn't doing this. What's more there would be a real problem if they weren't.

In terms of potential conflict with another sovereign state Indonesia simply has to rank highly for Australia. It is close by, has a large military, and has a history of conflicts with Australia. The risk may be very very low, but like house insurance, the risks of your house burning to the ground are low but you still take out insurance.

The interesting thing here is that Australia spied on behalf of NSA. Essentially this is the US spying by proxy. I hope that Australia got something good out of the deal because pissing of your neighbors can be pretty expensive.

Considering we control 1/3rd of the world's Uranium supply I'm actually quite pissed off that Australia does not have nuclear weapons. It would grant us a much larger voice in global affairs and we could effectively ignore the laws and rantings of the USA and Great Britain.

Also nukes suck for anything other than sabre rattling and as for giving you a bigger voice on the world stage? I don't think so. I really don't see Pakistan leading the way and they have nukes.

I am not an expert but I would have thought that Australia is one of the few countries that has the geography to be able to use nukes defensively. An attack would have to come from the north, and might only be to capture the resources there. That part of the country is relatively unpopulated, giving a good opportunity for a tactical nuke strike on home territory.

Not saying it would be a good idea, but one hell of a way to put off an invasion.

Because no one has ever stopped spying. People are greedy, feel cheated, or feel they know better than there government what is right and wrong. Once you compromise someone then you have control.The US is more into technical means. AKA sigint, comint, and photoint. Why do Germany and Brazil not stop it? They really do not want to. They get intel from the US when we see fit to share with them. If they get too nasty we shut off the tap. People need to just understand that this is just business as usual. Even

When Australia was first settled a few people did indeed try it. I remember a school teacher showing us some drawings of special saddles and other stuff that people had made for the purpose. The problem is that a roo large enough to carry a human is a powerful and aggressive animal, it puts up a hell of a fight. There were at least a couple of people that somehow managed to saddle the roo and then mount the saddle, but in both cases the roo just bashed them into a tree tree or something. The first seven people to try it were all killed. I've never heard of anyone trying it since.

Currently AUS and Indonesia are in a semi-turf war over PPNG. Indonesia are spreading their special brand of cruelty (which includes genocide Ref: 3 East Timor) there also and have shown that war crimes and other atrocities are not below them.

It's factual information, so I don't understand your confusion about the potential trolling. (Unless you're talking about including Tasmania in the list, but I think he's just highlighting exactly how close Papua is.)

Since ancient times, governments have always spied on one another with varying effectiveness. It's just in our modern times, with the advent of the Internet, governments not only spy on each other but on as many others as they possibly can. Unlike governments of course most people don't have such deep dark secrets and their communications with one another are almost always quite boring. Would it not be nice if all the spies got bored to death by all the mundane things we have to say to one another?

Except New Zealand is about 10 times the distance from Australia that Indonesia is. The only countries closer than Indonesia are Papua New Guinea, and maybe East Timor (though I think from the tip of Queensland to the border between PNG and Indonesia might be closer than East Timor to Bathurst Island)

While the most frequent reaction here is "Well, duh!" (and I must admit it was my first reaction too) that's not the point.

The point is that my government is doing that, and I strongly disapprove of it. Your government is doing that and you (perhaps) strongly disapprove of it. If we have the luck to live in democracies, it's our fucking duty to do something about it.

The fact that modern democracies have these grey-shaded institutions and make use of them to spy on each other is something that we probably will have to live with, and maybe even appreciate. As long as the targets for the espionage is large centralized power centres, like government, the military or organized, violent groups. In some way I think that we need, as in Iain Banks culrure-books, someone to step in in "special circumstances." Assassination, revolt or similar should of course rather NOT be the jo

The point is that my government is doing that, and I strongly disapprove of it. Your government is doing that and you (perhaps) strongly disapprove of it. If we have the luck to live in democracies, it's our fucking duty to do something about it.

Actually, I'm not sure I disapprove of the Australian government spying on Indonesia. There are a number of issues in Indonesia that impact on Australia directly including: government stability, fundamentalist Islam, asylum seekers, human rights abuses (e.g Aceh [wikipedia.org], East Timor [wikipedia.org] and West Papua [wikipedia.org]). Having inside knowledge of the government's thoughts could prevent misteps and assist Australia in working with Indonesia using soft power.

The point is that my government is doing that, and I strongly disapprove of it. Your government is doing that and you (perhaps) strongly disapprove of it. If we have the luck to live in democracies, it's our fucking duty to do something about it.

As distasteful as I find all this spying, I suspect it's necessary. The reason everyone does it is probably simple evolution. Those who don't spy on their neighbors, end up losing negotiations and being relegated to political-economic irrelevance best case, being

What I want to know is why did Australia NAME the country and the individual surveillance targets, then put that in a document given to a foreign country, which had their name and organization written all over it? Haven't they heard of code names?

They could have referred to target1, target 2 etc in the country of Elbonia on paper and made it clear in conversation who was being referred to. Even if the intended targets could have been easily guessed, it would have provided some level of deniability.

Please shoot the man that wrote this comment. Now, I don't claim to agree or disagree with him, but he very clearly needs to die. Again I claim no pro or con to his argument, but he has done considerable damage to this website and needs to be shot

Why would the US government risk egg on their faces and a further highlight the degradation of American Ideals for nothing?

Good question. I assume, however, that's it's purely rhetorical in nature since those pulling the puppet strings of [those running the government] sure seem to believe they've got an adequate reason...:)

Enlighten me: exactly what demands did Snowden make? The man is an idealist - nobody will disagree - but it is ridiculous to label him a terrorist for whistle-blowing things the government is doing. If what your government is doing terrifies you, I'd argue the problem is with your government, not the whistle-blower.

I'll agree he shouldn't be shot, but that's not exactly a ringing endorsement.

But your last sentence got my creative juices flowing. Why are you assuming EITHER the government or the whistle-blower actually has to be right?

Snowden seems to have meant well, but just look at this result of his leak: now everyone knows that Australia spied on Indonesia. That's probably isn't a surprise to anyone whose thought about it. After Ausrtralia has spies, and all countries within thousands of miles of it are a) strong

You and that cold fjord guy should totally hook up. You've got so much in common, I'm sure you'd hit it off straight away.

I am still not convinced that girlintraining and cold fjord are different people. Cold fjord seems to have a style of being 'lucid with possible poor citation' while girlintraining is longwinded, pulls reasonable sounding things straight out of her ass and tends to be far more eloquent.

Both push this similar mishmash of ideas, and just like the shill accounts are quickly modded up to +5 only to be modded back into oblivion the next day.

First and foremost: It's pointless. The cat's out of the bag and unless he's REALLY stupid, he's got some kind of dead man switch going. Like "if I vanish, publish that crap". Possibly he even informed the relevant places that this is the case. Or maybe he informed them and is just bluffing. And even if not, the damage is already done, there is precious little he could add to it anyway. At any rate, killing him won't accomplish anything beneficial for the US government. But there are some decisive drawbacks to it.

First, he's not in some insignificant backwater -stan country, he's in Russia. Remember that speck on the map? If not, ask your daddy, he'll tell you about them Russkies and how they used to be the other side of the nuke equilibrium. Also their special forces ain't what you're used to fighting. They're not some half trained religious nutjobs with outdated guns, they're top trained completely insane nutjobs with modern equipment who don't even ponder whether "collateral damage" could possibly have some kind of political impact. The kind of insane nuts that flood a theater full of hostages with nerve gas 'cause some terrorists might be inside. Not quite the kind of enemy you really want to fight over an insignificant nuisance.

And then of course there's the other reason: Public opinion. The US government already has a pretty bad rep, both with its citizens and with people abroad, but even with various governments that got pissed by having their cells and other forms of communication tapped and sniffed into. And then the US goes and kills the person who exposed it. Not only will it instantly raise the question why, and whether he had something even more dangerous to say, it also destroys the last form of goodwill the US still have. Technically, the US, and especially its government, would lose the last bit of credibility and trust it might have with some parts of the world.

In other words, the best thing the US can do right now is to simply wait for it to blow over and possibly start a war or two to distract the world.

Yeah, loosing credibility was the reason Stalin refused to have Trotsky killed once he killed off all his sons & chased him from Russia. It's also the reason that Putin refused to have Litvinenko poisoned with Polonium. Because, you know if either of these had occurred (but especially the second) that would have precluded anyone supposedly working for freedom to request asylum there...

I'm not calling for snowden's assassination but "loosing credibility" is a farcical reason for not doing it.

Putin, most Russian citizens & apparently Snowden maintain that he is the nec plus ultra in Democracy. See, he respects their constitution by not being President more than twice in a row & by continuing to follow all the parts of their constitution (that didn't bother him enough to have them removed by the rubber stamp Duma). Putin works hard to be seen as the "Good Guy", see? he even shelters that tireless worker for Democracy, Snowden.

So-called freedom fighter Snowden goes willingly a country where reporters and others are assassinated for questioning president/prime minister/president/... Putin? This in a country where the there cannot be a scandal on how the government spies on its citizens/neighbors/allies because it's legal & considered normal?

You need a really perverted definition of liberty to be able to hold that opinion, coward.

The kind of insane nuts that flood a theater full of hostages with nerve gas 'cause some terrorists might be inside.

Now now, you don't know that it was nerve gas. It's still officially a mystery gas. The authorities refused to release information about its makeup, even to the doctors who were desperately trying to save the poisoned hostages. In any case, the hostages were just lucky only about a quarter of them were killed. They could have all ended up summarily executed like the majority of the terrorists (most of whom were unconscious). Interestingly, even the terrorists who were captured alive turned out to have actua

Who said that? The prevailing opinion is that it was some variant of fentanyl. I strongly suspect you're joking, but I'll humor you. Xenon wouldn't make any sense for a number of reasons. Some of the hostage-takers used gas masks, but they weren't self contained breathing systems with their own oxygen supply from any report I've seen. If anything had been used that lowered the oxygen content of the air, the gas masks would have been ineffective. Also, reports are that hostages smelled the gas. Xenon is odor

Why, with the biggest arsenal in the world, with terrorists shitting bricks in Guantanamo, with several dictators sabre rattling and then sitting down and suddenly behaving when three aircraft carriers and a full entourage show up off their coast, can we not manage to deal with this one, simple, irritation? Just give him what he wants -- he wants to be a martyr. He leaks, and he leaks, and at this point he's probably inventing new documents to leak. Snowden might as well be a brand name; it's got household recognition. So please tell me... what's the hold up on pulling the trigger?

Point 1: It's Russia with nukes. You shouldn't be going around advocating the execution of people when you can't be bothered to understand that there are consequences to that.

Point 2: Snowden's leaks aren't damaging national security, but rather strengthening it by revealing US federal government abuses.

Point 3: Assassination is not a signature US move. In fact, we're rather bad at it.

Point 4: If you meant satire, you're going about it in a rather bone-headed way.

Ever heard of presuming innocent before guilty? Ever heard of this strange process whereby we have a trial, present evidence, sort through the facts, THEN decide innocent or guilty? Ever heard of the sixth amendment to the US constitution?

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of

You guys just don't get it. You're the very thing you claim to despise: The government comes and squishes free speech because it's unpopular... but then here you are, doing the same damn thing. The government isn't suppressing us: WE are suppressing us. We're plugging our ears and singing "Glory Glory Hallelujah."

You have the right to free speech, you don't have the right to force anyone to listen to it. You got downmoded, this isn't jackbooted thugs stepping on your throat. This is the collective public saying they think you're a moron and have no interest in listening to the drivel coming out of you. The paranoid schizophrenic hobo shouting on the street corner about the CIA using woodpeckers to control the russians has the right to say his nonsense. That doesn't mean I have to listen to it.

This is the collective public saying they think you're a moron and have no interest in listening to the drivel coming out of you.

No, it isn't. This is a specialty website catering to a small fraction of the population, and whether you want to admit it or not, it catrs to a very specific political orientation within that fraction of the population.

I am challenging that worldview, and I knew doing that would catch hell, but it needs done. People occasionally need to be shaken up and forced to answer uncomfortable questions. The question of what to do with Snowden is an uncomfortable one -- because something does need to be done. He bro

I think the Whistleblower Protection Act covers Snowden, particularly in light of Obama's Presidential Policy Directive 19. If WPA doesn't cover Snowden it should be extended so it does, but I think it already does, and the inconsistency isn't in the law it's in the administration's obedience to the law.

Well. I don't think you are a troll. I think you are just way off. So I will respond.

> can we not manage to deal with this one, simple, irritation?

Nope.

> This is an honest question; I simply do not understand why we're holding out on this one guy, when we've sent in Seal Team Six to give people who have done less in economic damage severe and sudden lead poisoning and then dumped their body uncermoniously in the ocean where it'll never be found.

Well. I don't think you are a troll. I think you are just way off. So I will respond.

Okay, first, thanks for responding. But, I didn't take a position as you're implying. I just asked a question, to start a dialog. I personally agree with most of what you're saying; But the only way to get a better handle on why these policy decisions are being made, and to give the public a voice in them. Because somewhere, someone in our government had this conversation. It was then tabled. We need to know why, and since we can be reasonably sure the government isn't going to reveal this, the best we can

Everyone spy agency would *LIKE* to spy on everyone all the time. But various factors stop that.

Budget, you don't have a $10 billion a year budget.Technical ability, you don't get access to zero day exploitsRoute, the comms doesn't traverse routes you can access.Political reasons, your own democracy can't be spied on, because you'll chose your politicians.Protection, the people you want to spy on are protected by a foreign spy agencyMotive, you just can't justify spying on people of no importance.Balance, t

This is post is why Snowden will never be accepted as a non-traitor by just about anyone who has ever worked in government service.

The simple fact is the Chinese spy on more people, with more invasive software, 100% of the time; then the worst allegations against the NSA. The Russians are Russian. Belarus still calls it the KGB. Numerous other countries have surveillance apparatuses much worse then the US, even if the worst nightmares of the EFF are true.

"Nothing Snowden has leaked has shown anything that hasn't being going on prior and since WWII."

Most of these programs began in 2011, the internet mass surveillance began in 2002, was stopped in 2005, and restarted in 2007. The technology to mass spy on everyone on the planet didn't exist even in 1995, let alone 1945, GCHQ's 'Tempora' only began in 2011 and is still waiting a law to make it legal. New Zealands mass surveillance officially only began in June this year.

What is the Great Firewall if not a mass surveillance tool? And a mass surveillance tool the government actually uses -- Weibo has a "Reincarnation Party" of users who got deleted for violating various government standards. Last time I checked precisely nobody had claimed they got screwed because some NSA algorithm decided they voted Romney. Plenty said they got screwed by IRS Algorithms, but the IRS is not the NSA.

I will agree lots of aspects of this are new tech, and that among the world's democracies the

Zoom in! Enhance! Zoom in some more here! Enhance! Zoom in on that reflection! Enhance! Zoom in! Ehance! Rotate around so we can see his face in the reflection instead of the back of his head! Enhance! We've got him!

civilian leaders? they are the decision makers. they turn the political wheels. you ABSOLUTELY should be spying as high up as your ability will allow.

countries don't have friends, they have interests. you shouldn't be trying to justify anything. it is team A's job to spy on team B. It is team B's job to stop it. There's no crying about it. Pick a side and do work.

you ABSOLUTELY should be spying as high up as your ability will allow.

Does your philosophy apply to corporations? Families? Individuals? Is that the only sensible path for career advancement?Should gov't departments spy on each other? (They are competing for funding.)Should the spies stop at bugging phones? You OK with blackmail and assassination, because "that's their job", or do you still draw a line somewhere?

Or are national govt's just a special case where laws, morality and conventions can be broken with trivial justification and impunity?Because I really don't see any s

You don't know who is planning or not planning an invasion. You don't know who will or won't help you in a war. You don't know troop composition, disposition, or strength. You don't know how the cookie will crumble due to current political winds. You don't know a goddamn thing unless you spy on them.

You can put two and two together, and fill in the blanks with educated guesses, inferences, and patterns... that is one tool. Other tool is spying. Without either you are a total SHIT craftsman.